Advice sought on setting up web site for a new International Hotel Rating system.

[Bruce Cresswell]

Hi, I dont know if this is the place or if anyone can be bothered with advice on my project.

My wife and I are constant travellers and over the last few years are very disillusioned about the star rating system that hotels simply make up to trick guests into paying exhorbitant prices for less than satisfactory accommodation.
We stay at approximately 70 different hotels a year around the world and are jaded about there being no reputable rating system that is international and that accurately reflects what you are paying for and what to expect.

I am thinking of setting up a non profit site where hotels are rated on what they actually provide....we find that there is no reliable system of rating, most hotels just making up a star rating that is not questionned, to suit their purposes.

Travel agents rely on hotel websites to recommend accommodations....they are generally commissioned based so they do not have the time to really check claims of star rating....often, photos are 20 years old, or taken 50 cms away from the facilities offered, to mislead the guest, or they simply lie..after all, once they have your money, you can go scream all you like..they simply dont care.

I have spoken to many people in the industry, and all agree that the existing star rating system has been bastardised by self interest and that a new system, if possible to set up, would be very welcome all round the world.
There is no shame in a hotel having a 2 star rating..there is shame in pretending it is 4 or 5 star and charging accordingly...it is simply fraud!

I have many ideas and plans on how to set this up, however, I am very inexperienced about what type of web site would be best for my purposes......I will be funding it entirely myself, so, of course, cost is a factor......
I would greatly appreciate any help or advice...would even welcome help from interested parties in doing something to help travellers in this venture, and taking an active part.

Ok..so I am retired and bored!!!...but recent trips have convinced me that there are so many parasites out there who just rip off people who work hard to save money for that dream holiday or trip, and no one seems to care.
The large hotel chains, generally are close to the ratings they advertise, but still need monitoring...however, so many small or less professional hotels or accommodation houses, charge 5 star prices for 2 star service.

Anyone interested, please message me and I will reply asap...your help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Bleery]

I'd recommend looking into Wordpress since you don't have any experience with design and development. There are prebuilt themes that have the options you want (locations with reviews for example) and also plugins that offer the same features.

[mlseim]

I don't want to post a negative answer ... I think it's great you're willing to learn to do websites.

but ...

I think what you're doing will be great for family and friends, but not for anyone else. First of all, nobody will visit your site unless you advertise, which will cost a lot of money. Where your ads or "back-links" appear, could be a problem if a hotel you recommended links to your website. It makes your rating appear biased. If you decide to get ratings from strangers, you won't be getting valid ratings because trolls will be sending you biased ratings.. So it all comes down to YOUR ratings. You may be experienced and have a good all-around knowledge of international hotels, but what if you have one bad experience and nobody else does? What if my idea of a good hotel is different than yours? I may decide that the hotel you disliked was good for me, because the price was right and it was close to my destination.

That's why I'm saying what you do will be good for people that know you. Friends and families seeking advice from you will trust what you say.

In my opinion, you would be better off starting a FaceBook page where you discuss your travel/hotel experiences with people around you. See what kind of feedback and comments you get.

To answer your question though ... WordPress is a good place to start. It's "blog-like", which would work good for travel stories.

[Ronald Roe]

I don't know if you're asking to have someone work with you on it, or you just want to know where to start. What is your background? What is your intent in terms of your work load on this? A hundred other questions...

Not knowing the answer to any of that, I can certainly say that it can be done, and it can be done right, or cheap. The meaning of "cheap" depends on what you see as your role in it. If you want someone else to build it, there is no cheap if you want to succeed. If you're wanting to build it yourself, there really isn't cheap in terms of time expenditure. It does sound like you have time to kill, though so I would take a look at https://freecodecamp.org

Free Code Camp will take you from zero knowledge to enough to be able to create a web app of your own. It also does it using modern web technologies, which Wordpress is starting to lack these days. That isn't to dismiss Max's point by the way. Wordpress won't be a good platform to build your app on, but I can personally attest that it isn't a bad place to start learning web development.

[cosmic_wheels]

I think a new hotel rating system is a great idea. I would recommend using Wordpress to build your site, it is easy to set up and use. Lynda.com is also a great resource for getting up to speed with Wordpress and web development in general although there are many free wordpress tutorials out there that are also pretty good to get started.